Anyone baking something special to celebrate?   I made David's Pain de Campagne and will be blogging about it very soon.... giving of course proper credit!   I include here a picture of it, it turned out sooooo good!

I'm new to bread baking. I'm about to make a bread from the Leader "Local Breads" book....the Genzano bread. I've read posts here that some of his recipe ingredients are innacurate but I think I should be okay because I have a good triple beam scale and I'm going to be using his gram measurements vs. ounces/cups.  But here's my question. When the recipe states 300 grams water does that mean I should actually weigh the water and use 300 grams in weight of water??

My husband German I'm Thai. My family eat European bread for breakfast, I have to drive 40 min. or 1 hour to get those bread and buy them a lot to storage in our freezer so we have breads to eat for hole month.

In Thailand not many people eat bread. So, very few good bread (the way we like) in the market. Now, I wanted to make my own bread, and I had problem to make Baguettes and souredough, I guess may be I didn't get the right flour. I still keep on trying, sometime doesn't work out good sometime it workout.

I got your books in my cooking book collection, hasn't try your recipe yet. I would love to make bread everyday but my family couldn't keep up. :) 

Hello from Arizona  weather is starting to get below 90degrees in the daytime.

My question. Even with a loaf that has fair consistancy but not as good as I would like. My bread does not seem to have any real good taste.  I have tried 2-3 types of bread flour from the local stores.  I have tried unbleached whit flour. I just did 2 different Italian loaves and each had fair consistancy but a blah taste. Both were baked with Gold Medal better for bread flour.  I have tried more expensive brands also.  The bread has a consistancy like a bread you would buy off the shelf. Soft and light . Certainly not of a Italian bread consistancy or taste.   Any ideas.

Thanks

Mr Bob

Loaf I did yesterday.

I wanted to share a new find for any Canadian bakers in Montreal. I was at Bonaza grocery store and was

delited to find Italian Flour type "00" great for bread and pizza for only $5.99 for 5 kilo's.

Hope I posted this inthe best place. I just looked at the Honeyvillegrain site, and they have some great prices for 50lb bags of various flours. I can't store that much, but the prices are hard to beat, and shipping is less than $5.00 on ANY order. So...anyone (or more than one, if we can coordinate it) in the Chicago area have any interest in splitting some bags? I'm interested in the Alta Artisan Unbleached  Flour for sure. (I always use unbleached flours). Probably some others, too.

Anybody on here able to comment on some of the other flours (for bread baking, mainly), like the Beehive Patent flour, the California Best Bread Flour, the Imperial High Gluten Flour? I don't know enough about the information they provide in their specs to help me determine which flours would work best for me. I just finished my WFO and hope to do most of my baking in it. I know I want to get the Artisan one, but past that, what would be a good ??? Any input would be appreciated. I like sourdoughs, crispy crusted breads, but also like to make a wide range of bread types.   

Please, be kind and don't laugh too much. 

Evidently I need help to get the "epis" shape right.   What have I done wrong?   I suspect the cutting needed to be more parallel and deeper, but... if anyone has precise advice, I would love to hear.

the bread is part of the BBA Challenge, made with the dough from "Pain de Campagne"

I include two photos, of the dough cut, before the second rise - and the final product... (sigh)

A while ago I posted a question about the possibility of baking with wine - whether it could be done, what the tricks might be, and general anybody-know...  I received so much helpful tips about procedures, and recommendations of the Vinafera wine flour, and links and ideas.  User yozzause had the excellent idea of adding wine to a recipe I was familiar with, and using a starter, so I finally, finally worked up the guts to try that...  

I took a very basic formula for a honey wheat germ bread I'm quite familiar with.  I didn't want to use up all the resources in our pantry, so I made it in a very small proportion.  Essentially, I went with white flour, active dry yeast, a bit of vital wheat gluten and a little bit of wheat germ, honey, butter, and moisture – I replaced half the water with red wine. 

I had been advised that the alcohol present in the wine could inhibit yeast development, so I attempted to burn away the alcohol on the stovetop; simple enough.  It’s quite a basic recipe of mix, knead, rise, shape, proof, and bake, and it went normally – a good rise on the dough and the loaf, and a fine oven spring. 

Argh! But I was so disappointed!  Usually, this bread has a nice, wholesome, slightly sweet taste with the flavor of some wheat without the heaviness, and I’d hoped to contribute a bit of the red wine flavor.  Best part: purple dough!  I loved the crimson touch.  Worst part: bitterness!  Though the crumb was soft and quite normal, the taste, once rested, was pretty harsh to me.  I skipped that one.  Inexplicably, my husband liked the bitterness!

But I’m wondering whether the bitterness is an inevitable product of adding alcohol to a recipe, or whether I did something wrong, or if this was simply the wrong recipe – anybody have any thoughts?  Suggestions?  Again, thank you all, for everything!

p.s.  I did find this recipe for an ancient Roman bread made with must, the early juices of fermenting wine, and I think perhaps I’ll try that, and I thought others might be interested too!  The site has a number of ancient and medieval breads:  http://www.celtnet.org.uk/recipes/roman/fetch-recipe.php?rid=roman-mustacei

I was up until midnight last night baking these beauties.  Unfortunately due to lack of sheet pans I had to bake/proof in two batches which really stretched out my finish time.

Thanks,

Darren

Hello, everybody!  

This begins with a resounding thank-you to user jannrn for asking a question and giving me an excellent idea...  A week ago, I posted about my Greek Fennel, Yogurt, and Honey Bread, and sweetly Jan told me she liked the photographs but hated fennel (I'm really the only person I know who does!).  She asked about alternate flavors, which got me to thinking...  

Here is a picture of the original fennel bread:

But after Jan's comment, I decided to experiment in a couple of ways with its basic formula, which is available on the old post too.  As before, these recipes are for individual loaves, but easily multiplied

My husband, David, adores onions (he could eat them like apples), so here:

For Love's Sake Onion Bread

Ingredients:  

165 grams flour

3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

3/4 teaspoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon powdered onion soup mix (a huge thanks to floydm's onion braid for this idea!)

dough enhancers: 2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten, pinch of ginger, 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

2 oz. warm water

1 cup total yogurt (2 oz. + 2 teaspoons yogurt for dough)

1 onion 

Instructions:

First, prepare the onion-yogurt blend.  Place 1 cup yogurt and 1 onion (but reserve slices for topping) in a food processor.  Blend well, until mixed.  

Whisk a little bit of the flour, yeast, sugar, and dough enhancers in water, and allow to autolyze.

Add salt, soup powder, the rest of the flour, and 2 oz. + 2 teaspoons of the onion yogurt blend.  Reserve the rest of the yogurt blend as a fantastic dip/spread!

Knead for 15 minutes, until the dough is elastic and will not break if stretched.  

Place dough in a lightly greased bowl and allow to rise, covered, for 1/2 - 2 hours or until doubled.

Remove dough from bowl and give it several soft kneadings and envelope turns.  On a lightly greased baking sheet, shape into a boule.

Allow to rise for 45 minutes or so, while preheating the oven to 210 degrees Celsius.  

Before baking, brush with milk and arrange onion slices on top as desired.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown, with an inner temperature of 205 degrees Celsius.  Enjoy!  Trust me, it sounds strange, but the yogurt-onion blend is amazing!

Or: Harvest Apple and Spice Bread

(okay, I know this bread looks really stupid and like a first grader made it.  I got dumb and silly, but it was still so tasty!)

Unlike David, I love actual apples.  Moreover, we have the dried fruit resulting from ten or so pounds of them (an unexpected and enormous present from our neighbors), and I'd better use some up.  So...

165 grams flour

3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

2 teaspoons honey

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

dough enhancers: 2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten, pinch of ginger, 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

1 cup total yogurt (2 oz. + 2 teaspoons yogurt for dough)

1/2 ripe red apple

2 oz warm water

2 tablespoons chopped dried apples, plus extra for decoration

First, blend the yogurt with the 1/2 apple until very smooth.  

Whisk a little bit of the flour, yeast, honey, and dough enhancers in water, and allow to autolyze.

Add salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, the rest of the flour, and 2 oz. + 2 teaspoons of the apple-yogurt blend.  The rest make a pretty good spread!

Knead for 15 minutes, until the dough is elastic and will not break if stretched.  

Place dough in a lightly greased bowl and allow to rise, covered, for 1/2 - 2 hours or until doubled.

Remove dough from bowl and give it several soft kneadings and envelope turns.  On a lightly greased baking sheet, shape into a boule.

Allow to rise for 45 minutes or so, while preheating the oven to 210 degrees Celsius.  

Before baking, brush with milk and decorate with bits of dried apple, though you don't have to make it as dumb-looking as mine!

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown, with an inner temperature of 205 degrees Celsius. Hope you like it!

This, by the way:

is the original crumb from the fennel bread, and I had identical results with the onion and apple variations, including the satisfaction!  And thanks again to Jan for the idea!